The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
There are numerous types of locks in existence today that are used to secure various devices ranging from doors, to safes and firearms, for example. Historically, such locks have been constructed as purely mechanical devices having a key slot or combination code that must be accessed to transition the lock between an open and closed orientation. These mechanical locks are useful for their simplicity, but can be time consuming to operate, especially when used on a firearm, for example, where access to the weapon is needed in an emergency situation.
In recent years there has been an increased development of electromechanical locking mechanisms which utilize an electrically driven bolt and/or an electrically-operated authentication device such as an electric keypad, RFID interrogator and/or biometric sensor, for example. Such systems are extremely useful as they are able to transition between a locked and unlocked orientation extremely quickly. Unfortunately, such systems are prone to difficulties such as circuit or power failures that can disable the system from working as intended.
As such, it is common for such devices to have a backup key which can manually transition the lock upon the occurrence of such a failure. Although this is a useful feature in non-emergency situations, it is impractical for a user to have to unexpectedly find a key to manually unlock a firearm with a broken electronic lock in an emergency situation where the weapon is needed immediately.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide for a firearm having a backup manual combination locking system for providing two distinct and independent means for unlocking a weapon, so as to provide the benefits of both a mechanical and electromechanical lock while overcoming the drawbacks associated with both.